Bruins' hierarchy disappointed, but optimistic

Tuesday

May 20, 2014 at 8:27 PMMay 20, 2014 at 8:31 PM

Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs and team president Cam Neely don't think the team needs a major overhaul in the wake of a second-round playoff elimination. Jacobs says the team can spend the NHL's salary cap to prepare for next season.

Mike Loftus The Patriot Ledger

BOSTON – There’s an echo these days at the TD Garden, but it has nothing to do with all that open, unused space. It’s the sound of everyone associated with the Bruins saying pretty much the same thing.

Team president Cam Neely, owner Jeremy Jacobs and his son, team principal Charlie Jacobs, held their annual season-end press conference Tuesday morning at the Garden, where six nights earlier the B’s were eliminated from the playoffs by the Canadiens in Game 7 of the second round.

Neely and the Jacobses essentially repeated what general manager Peter Chiarelli, head coach Claude Julien and the players said Friday, when exit meetings were held: They’re disappointed by the early departure – brought on, they all feel, by a teamwide failure to play at the level reached during regular season. Changes will come, but no major overhaul is planned. The championship window of opportunity, they believe, hasn’t closed.

And they’ll be able to spend what’s allowed by the NHL salary cap – if they think that’s what it’ll take – to resume contention for the Stanley Cup next season, and perhaps even past that.

“I think we’ll be at the cap,” said the senior Jacobs of a salary ceiling NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman estimates will fall between $69 million and $71 million for 2014-15 – up from this past season’s $64.3 million.

“It’s just going to get bigger. It’s institutionalized, so to speak. It’s part of the fabric now, with the growing communication income that should continue to go up.”

The B’s have a relatively short list of key players approaching free agency, with winger Jarome Iginla (unrestricted), defenseman Torey Krug and winger Reilly Smith (both restricted) at the top. However, they’re already committed to some $62 million, with achieved performance bonuses pushing that number higher.

While the Bruins face a potentially tight fit under the NHL cap, they’re under no orders to come in below an ownership-mandated limit.

“We’re given the opportunity to spend to the cap,” Neely said, “if it’s necessary to do that – which we believe helps us have a better, competitive team.”

Citing the Bruins’ Presidents Trophy season, Neely and his bosses feel the team is plenty competitive already, and in no need of a shakeup.

“We haven’t fallen off the cliff,” Neely said. “We didn’t play as well as we needed to play in the second round. … From my perspective, as a group, we didn’t play the way we were playing in March (15-1-1) and April.

“Our core group, aside from maybe (captain Zdeno Chara, 37) is still relatively young. You’re talking mid- to late 20s, maybe, and Zdeno is still, in my opinion, the best defender in the game. So I think we’re still in our window.”

Neely, as Chiarelli and Julien said last week, envisions “tweaks” to the roster.

“We just have to recognize what we need to do to make our team better,” he said, “whether it’s guys playing better, or we’re adding different players.”

The Bruins expect a larger return next season on last year’s trade that sent Tyler Seguin and Rich Peverley to Dallas. Smith, in his first full NHL season, surprised with 20 goals and 51 points, but the more established Loui Eriksson (10 goals, 37 points in 61 games), who suffered two concussions, struggled until after representing Sweden in the Olympics and didn’t approach the 30-goal, 70-point averages established in his last four full seasons with the Stars. (Winger Matt Fraser, who scored an overtime goal in his first playoff game against the Canadiens, could crack next year’s lineup, while defenseman Joe Morrow is still considered a promising prospect.)

“It was a difficult transition for (Eriksson),” Neely said, “and then he got hurt. We think he can be a better player. He’s proven to be a better player, and that’s our expectation.”

After two Stanley Cup Final appearances in the previous three years, the Bruins don’t like having to wait so long for their next chance to fulfill what they see is their potential. That is their expectation, though.

“When we have the regular season we had … that wasn’t luck,” Neely said. “We were a good team, and we still feel we have a good team.”